重金属乐队Metallica商业上最成功的专辑，在美国本土狂销1300万张，并获得1992年度葛莱美奖。由于专辑封面是全黑的，专辑也被称为The Black Album。商业上的成功得益于成员在旋律上下的苦功，例如专辑中的"Enter Sandman"就成为电台热播歌曲，即使对重金属并不热衷的听众也很容易接受。

这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第252位。

====================================

Metallica (also known as The Black Album) is the eponymously titled fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on August 12, 1991, through Elektra Records and received critical acclaim. Metallica produced five hit singles that are considered today among the band's best-known songs: "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Nothing Else Matters", "Wherever I May Roam", and "Sad but True". The band promoted the album with a series of tours. In 2003, the album was ranked number 255 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album marked a change in the band's sound to one less harsh than the thrash metal style of their previous four albums.

The recording of Metallica was troubled, with the band frequently entering conflicts with Bob Rock, the band's new producer, during production. The album debuted at number one in ten countries, and spent four consecutive weeks at the top spot of the Billboard 200, making it Metallica's first album to top album charts. Metallica is the group's best-selling album, selling 30 million copies worldwide. It is the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. The album was certified 16× platinum by the RIAA on December 13, 2012. Metallica played the album in its entirety during the 2012 European Black Album Tour.

(wiki)

====================================

by Steve Huey

After the muddled production and ultracomplicated song structures of ...And Justice for All, Metallica decided that they had taken the progressive elements of their music as far as they could and that a simplification and streamlining of their sound was in order. While the assessment made sense from a musical standpoint, it also presented an opportunity to commercialize their music, and Metallica accomplishes both goals. The best songs are more melodic and immediate, the crushing, stripped-down grooves of "Enter Sandman," "Sad but True," and "Wherever I May Roam" sticking to traditional structures and using the same main riffs throughout; the crisp, professional production by Bob Rock adds to their accessibility. "The Unforgiven" and "Nothing Else Matters" avoid the slash-and-burn guitar riffs that had always punctuated the band's ballads; the latter is a full-fledged love song complete with string section, which works much better than might be imagined. The song- and riff-writing slips here and there, a rare occurrence for Metallica, which some longtime fans interpreted as filler next to a batch of singles calculated for commercial success. The objections were often more to the idea that Metallica was doing anything explicitly commercial, but millions more disagreed. In fact, the band's popularity exploded so much that most of their back catalog found mainstream acceptance in its own right, while other progressively inclined speed metal bands copied the move toward simplification. In retrospect, Metallica is a good, but not quite great, album, one whose best moments deservedly captured the heavy metal crown, but whose approach also foreshadowed a creative decline.